Riding Fear.

I woke up with a flinch, as he leaned over to kiss my cheek, my hand flew to cover my face even before my eyes were fully open. I don't know what he did to teach me to fear him even when I am asleep or if it was me at all that taught him that, but I am amazed by it.

I used to believe that I would never want to live in fear again, not after being with my previous partner. I used to dread being around him, and while there were parts of that dread that I longed for, there were other bits that robbed my sanity. Late at night, I would be in the bathroom working while he slept outside in the bedroom, and I would try to type as quietly as possible so he wouldn't hear me. I even started writing on my phone because it made less noise. I don't know why he hated seeing me with devices around me so much, but something about about a phone in my hand and a laptop in front of me triggered a paranoid delusion about what I was doing in him. I would listen intently to ensure that he kept on snoring, but the moment he stopped I would freeze and try to hide all the things I had with me in the bathroom.

I kept one of those old-school lighters with the rolling bit in there with me so he wouldn't hear me light up my cigarettes. I had seen the man sleep through an earthquake but I dreaded the prospect of waking him up by flushing the toilet. I'd hold it or pee quietly over the drain and hope he didn't hear the sound of the water trickling down the pipes. I dreaded running out of battery in any of my devices, I charged obsessively. My husband, he sometimes doesn't understand why I let my phone run out of battery even when I can easily charge it and continue working, I can't quite explain to him that it's an act of liberty. I can't quite explain why I still dread having to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I don't have to be, but I'm still terrified of waking the man in my bed.

It's because, no matter how quiet I was in that bathroom, I still managed to wake him up every once in a while. He never came banging to the door, no. He'd wake up and he would make a slight noise, I'd freeze on the toilet and hold my breath. For a few minutes there wouldn't be any sound, but as soon as I would go back to my phone, he would call me.

"Come outside," he would say, "I need to talk to you."

I'd have to get up and open the door knowing exactly what was going to happen. I never delayed it because I knew the next step for him would be to come banging on the door, he wasn't one who cared about who was listening, I used to find that so attractive about him. Maybe I still do. I'd walk out and stand beside the bed. He'd be sitting there with his elbows over his knees, looking up at me. His eyebrow ring would glisten in the light coming from the flashlight on my phone. I always forget about that ring when I recreate him in my head, it didn't go, it didn't fit. Yet when I first met him it fit very well with the long hair, skinny-build, drums and the tattoos, but by that time he was more about shirts, trousers and romantic ballads. That last one doesn't make sense to me either.

"What were you doing in there?" He would ask.

"Please, I was just working," I would say already begging even though I hadn't done anything wrong.

It wasn't like that with him. He never told me anything was wrong, but everything was wrong if it irked him. Everything had the potential to be wrong. Somedays he wanted me to go fuck a bunch of people, other days he couldn't stand for me to be around another woman I wasn't even dating. The inconsistency really worked for me, I never had to follow any rules, yet I was always breaking them somehow.

"Do you always have to work at night?" He would ask.

"I'm sorry," I would tell him, "I wouldn't but it's really important, I'm sorry."

"Don't apologise," he was snarl, standing up, "It doesn't mean anything to you. You never mean it. You never think you did anything wrong."

He was the only man who ever fucked me who hated my apologies. He wasn't interested in forgiving me, I think, but he knew how to pull my strings. When he refused to accept my apologies, it always brought me instantly to my knees. It was a reflex, I was always all-too-eager to bow before him. On the inside it still irked me that I was apologizing for doing my job, but it didn't matter once he started to get angry. Getting on my knees was my acceptance of the anger, I think at some point, I became friends with his anger. At least the kind of friend that teaches you how to survive your relationship with him. He'd always slap me first, I think he knew it confused me because of how much I like being slapped. He'd slap me like a savage, I don't know how my neck or my face survived those slaps, my bladder never did. He'd slap and I'd run. Or crawl. I'd try to crawl away and he would follow me, kicking. Threatening to throw me out on the terrace. It was always a frenzy, I couldn't govern my responses. One moment I'd beg him to stop, another I would pull at his clothes, and in a third I would ask for more. Eventually though, it always got too much for me and I would start to howl. He usually stopped soon after the howling began.

Although when I say stop I mean he would stop hitting me, but that is when he would start saying the hurtful things that still confusingly arouse me to this day. As I sobbed on the floor, usually on the floor anyway, he'd tell me that I should be sorry. I believed him entirely, I felt sorry, so when he pushed me over the bed and started to force his cock into my ass, it felt like I deserved just that. He knew how much it hurt me, and how much worse my fear for each time he did it, but I think that is always what he wanted from me. He wanted me to live in fear of him, and because I can still feel him ripping through me each time someone puts anything in my ass even now, I know he succeeded. I lived in abject fear of him.

So after him, I was sure, I was completely sure that I didn't ever want to live in fear again. It's not the same though, it's not the same kind of fear. Or at least the cause of the fear is not the same. I remember the first time I felt truly scared of the man I so often call master, he slapped me on both sides of my face at the same time and it fucking broke me. Later that day, he came towards me to fix the zipper on my jacket and as I felt his hands come towards my face, I panicked. I flinched and immediately started to cry.

"Did you think I was going to hit you?" He asked.

"Yes," I told him, I felt like crying for a completely different reason at that moment.

"Good," he said pulling me to his arms, "It was very hot to see you flinch like that."

It was, he wasn't wrong, over the years I think I just developed a fetish for flinching when he makes sudden movements or sometimes, just movements. I like that the thing I expect to feel most at his hands is pain. Which is not to say there isn't an inordinate amount of tenderness and affection in our relationship, but those are separate things. One doesn't balance the other. One isn't there to make up for the other. It was that day that I considered for the first time that there might be something to fear in him. I don't believe that he would ever strike me in anger or over something that impedes with my autonomy or civic rights, but the fear is still real.

It's so real I felt it in response to his scent even before I had woken up. I think it really cemented the day I realised he doesn't stop hurting me when I cry. The way to get my previous partner to stop was to really howl, the only way to get my husband to stop is to revoke consent. Years ago when I first slept with him I never thought he was going to be the person who I sometimes see before me. He watches me cry and tells me to shut up. He sees the tears fall on my face and he slaps me over the tears. He sees my eyes fill up and it only makes him hurt me more. It's the only thing that's ever made me feel more helpless than hiding in the bathroom in my own home, yet it isn't like that at all.

I don't want to run away. I want to run towards it. I want to watch myself as I cry and metaphysically touch myself as I watch me crumble in fear of him. There is a strange perfection to the hurt feeling in my eyes every time I look at him, I think without it, I may lose my vision entirely. I don't know how he did it, I really don't, and I think that makes it better somehow. With my ex I helped put every piece of that monster together before my own eyes, but this one fed off me and created itself. I cannot maneuver it and the fear of this powerlessness doesn't make me nauseate me. It makes me breathless. I don't want to breathe. I want to watch in awe as he does things with that I did nothing to create. I want to watch the fearful puppet with his hand up her. It's not the same.  

I woke up flinching to the sight of him and all it made me want to do was spread my legs. I remembered every single thing from the night before, yet I really only wanted more. I never thought I would ever want to live in fear again, but I can't remember how I ever lived without it.